


Shadows I: Malevolence

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Post-Sirius in Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5922538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape actually has reasons for not wanting Remus around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows I: Malevolence

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

It wasn't hard at all to remember glinting blue eyes, a hand closed around his throat. Odd, how the terror could spring up anew, with all of the memories that had gone after, that should have superceded it...

Black was mad. Black was homicidal. Severus had ~known~, but no one (Dumbledore, though it was hard, given his own circumstances, to find fault with the man for being blind to a person's darkness) had done anything about it. And Black had torn apart the fabric of his perfect friendships and Black had murdered innocents and ~Black~ had sprung free and was coming back for more.

Dumbledore had opened their doors to Black's werewolf lover.

Snape put a hand to the cool stone wall of his dungeon and tried to repress the growing urge to vomit. It was absurd; he was beyond this. ...Exactly; he was ~beyond~ this, so why did all of it insist on coming back?

He remembered a gentle boy with autumn hair and eyes and a shy smile. So kind and placid... infinitely mild, was Remus.

He remembered snapping jaws and slavering tongue and those ~eyes~ and knowing, for the first time in his life, that he was going to die. All will to live draining out of him in the face of that inevitable mouth lunging toward him.

He had closed his eyes then, a second before James appeared from nowhere to save the day. Sometimes he felt as though he had never reopened them. Seventeen years later he was ~still~ waiting for the jaws to rip into him, still anticipating the end.

He had fallen into Lucius's bed; he had fallen into Voldemort's promise of destruction. He had fallen into redemption still dreaming of the release that bite would have brought.

Lupin had passed him in the hall the other day, a soft smile too weary to reach his shadowed eyes. "Severus." A gentle, unassuming word, greeting his colleague, greeting an old acquaintance from school. As if there was nothing at all between them, as if Severus had never ~seen~ what lay behind the facade.

Seventeen years ago, gentle eyes too weary, too ashamed to meet his own. And Severus had thought, for a moment, ~it wasn't his fault~. For a moment, he felt only pity, reached out and tentatively touched the thin shoulder. A shuddering breath, and then ~those~ eyes gazing at the meal they had lost.

Remus had stared him down, revealing himself, sending a clear message - ~stay away~. There had been no apology in those eyes.

A week later, Severus found them in the library. Remus was devouring Sirius Black. Those delicate hands were tangled in the other boy's hair as his lips and teeth and tongue crushed into neck and collarbone, Sirius writhing and whimpering like a wounded animal, pressing back with his hips. It had taken Severus several moments to truly comprehend what he was seeing.

~Together~. Scholar, werewolf, prankster, ~murderer~. Twined together. The same.

Let Dumbledore deny it. Let Lupin hide behind those gentle eyes and weary smile. Severus ~knew~.

Thirteen years before, Black had betrayed his friends and spared his lover. There was nothing to suggest to Severus that Remus Lupin would not do the same. So let him win the hearts of the staff and the students, gathering in sympathy like fallen leaves. Severus would brew a potion to preclude one of his more apparent dangers, and as for the others, he would watch. Watch and wait.

The malevolent arrogance of Sirius Black, the memory of it, the potential for it now that he was loose, hung about Remus Lupin's back like a possessive shadow.


End file.
